February 22, 2010

Amtrak asks seven firms to dream up plans for Chicago's Union Station

Amtrak has asked seven architectural and real estate firms to submit proposals to redevelop a key part of Chicago's Union Station and plans to select a winning proposal by the end of May.

The firms include the Chicago office of architects Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; Chicago developer U.S. Equities Realty and the Chicago office of Jones Lang LaSalle, which currently manages Union Station for Amtrak.

The firms are being asked to come up with plans for Union Station's neo-classical Headhouse building (above), which is bounded by Clinton, Canal, Jackson and Adams streets.

"This is a pretty blank sheet of paper," said Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari. "We will be looking for some creative, imaginative and transportation-oriented uses of the building."

The request for proposals comes amid a sputtering economy and the prospect of more people using the already-overcrowded station, which serves Metra commuter trains as well as Amtrak's long-distance and regional routes. The Obama administration recently awarded $8 billion in funds for the development of high-speed rail networks, including a Midwestern network with a hub in Chicago.

"Certainly everything points to us having more service," Magliari said.

In 2006, a joint venture headed by Jones Lang LaSalle won the bidding to redevelop the Headhouse into a hotel, condominiums, office and retail space. The company planned to redevelop the existing structure and to build an 18-story tower on top of it. Amtrak, which owns Union Station, entered into a redevelopment agreement with Jones Lang LaSalle. But the $250 million project never proceeded.

The other firms invited to participate are Boston architects Goody Clancy, Philadelphia architects Wallace Roberts & Todd: the architectural firm of KlingStubbins, which has offices in Cambridge, Mass. and Philadelphia; and New York architects Ehrenkrantz Eckstut & Kuhn.

The request for proposals contemplates the redevelopment of several vacant office floors above the station's Great Hall, a grandly-scaled, now little-used waiting room that has been employed as a movie set. It also invites the possibility of new uses for vacant retail space around the Great Hall.

The project's scope does not include the crowded concourse area to the east of the Great Hall. Nor will the project use federal stimulus money devoted to high-speed rail, Magliari said.

Amtrak is requesting the proposals at a time when the real estate market has been battered by overbuilding and a credit squeeze. But the railroad concern wants to have plans in place that can be acted upon once the economy improves, the spokesman said.

Magliari said the seven invited firms would be free to team up with other companies as they made proposals. Jones Lang LaSalle, for example, had worked with Chicago architect Lucien Lagrange on its previous Union Station plan.

In a separate move, the spokesman said, Amtrak is developing plans of its own to provide air-conditioning in the Great Hall. The lack of air-conditioning limits the hall's ability in the summer to serve as a "customer-friendly" waiting room or as a site for special events, Magliari said. That portion of the project won't likely start, he said, until October.

Posted at 09:13:35 AM

Comments

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Perhaps they should concentrate on improving the portion of the station that is actually used...the often smoke filled, mazelike concourses.

"The project's scope does not include the crowded concourse area to the east of the Great Hall."
- What!?!? Are they serious? I hope they've got a separate plan for the part of the station people actually use. The concourse is accessed by 10's of thousands of commuter and travelers every day - and it's a dump. Seriously, it looks like a scene from 'Slumdog Millionaire'. The platforms are narrow and dangerous, the support structures are crumbling, the ceilings drip a tar-like-sludge on commuters every time it rains, signage is from the 70's (providing no updates on delays) and the entire place is lit with a single 40 watt bulb.
Now, once you get past that ray-of-sunshine to start your day, you can navigate 500 yards of scattered tables and chairs - praying that the smoke filling the 6'6" high hallway is just another batch of burnt popcorn. Then it's on up to the street where Daley still has road barricades blocking the pedestrian entrances - as if terrorism were actually a higher risk to the commuters than a grease fire.
Now, I am a fan of fine architecture, but if you’re going to spend the money, spend it where it will be of some use. Fix the concourse and platforms.
...Mike
Southwest Commuter - 5yrs
Been in the 'Great Hall' - twice

And the local architects are the ones who have already blighted the city with their blandness as they again overlook the great talent pool of smaller better firms in Chicago. And this whole thing is tied up into a TIF boondoggle that should be illegal anyway. Eventually we'll get the mayor and the aldercrooks put into jail.

Paris has numerous central train stations (I believe 7), each serving a slice of the compass outward from town.

For high speed rail into Chicago, we should consider entirely new stations rather than trying to cram more trains into Union Station or even Olgilvie. The vacant land near the Tribune's Freedom Center could be developed to serve trains going north and west. The vacant land near River City could serve trains going south and east.

As Blair has discussed before, the high rise structures above Union Station limit what can be done in the space. The structures also trap significant diesel exhaust fumes. However, new stations could be designed with 21st century standards.

After researching this topic for several years as a chicago rail buff and mechancial designer, get rid of La Salle station move the tracks a few blocks west on the vacant land along the east side of the river and build an eastern terminus that connects to the existing Union Station via foot bridge. Combine both Union Station and Olgilvie and turn it into a single large rail transportation center for both long distance and commuter rail travel. The CTA's Blue, Green, Pink, Red and Orange lines could also be routed to have boarding platforms for additional flexibility and choices for getting around the Chicagoland area. The future Union Station rail complex could be a mecca of businesses that cater to various needs for the traveling public. Restaurants, dry cleaning, day care, health care, gym, shopping, hotel just to name a few. If Chicago ever wants to be a Olympic host contender again this will have to take place to accomodate the large volumes of people locally and from all over the world.

I understand the design competition process, but what better firm than SOM to do this project? SOM Chicago has given Chicago the Willis Tower (aka Sears Tower), John Hancock, the new Trump Tower and of course the world's tallest building Burj Dubai. They are not just "in" the city of Chicago, they are "of" the city.

That area needs some night life. It dies after 6 pm and doesn't wake up until dawn.

A mall, with surrounding REAL food spots, maybe even a French Market South?
A theatre, movie and live? Condos. The only way to bring life to that dead zone is with residents. A grocery for the new residents?

Just a huge towering condo development on top would do more for that neighborhood than any other option.

For air conditioning, they could build something like the Sears/Willis Tower uses, and the entire surrounding neighborhood...a central chiller system. This could be built either on the lot used for parking just to the south of the headhouse, or added to the top of the existing parking garage on the other side of that parking lot. Then surrounding buildings could tap into the new chiller facility lowering their costs and reducing overall greenhouse gas emissions from all the individual A/C systems in use currently. This central HVAC plant could maybe recapture some of the heat generated from all the parked, but idling locomotives in the station? At least it could easily run a geothermal loop into the nearby river?

Amtrak is just being foolish here!
Yes, A/C would be nice in the hall, but the fact is, the greatest need is to tear down the 1970s junk above the concourses & rebuild the original concourse so that people can actually move around this place!
To go from the north berth to the south berth means a long, meandering trip, through huge crowds, climbing stairs or ramps, and then through yet a narrow corridor where the actual entrances to the platforms are.
One major change would be for Amtrak to eliminate the baggage platforms from a few tracks to either increase the width of the existing platforms or to add a few tracks for the commuter trains.
They also need to force Metra to electrify the Burlington & Milwaukee Rd. lines to eliminate the diesel fumes.
They also need to get together with the city & plan for tracks under Clinton Street to also increase capacity.
They also need to abandon the cowardice since 2001 & reopen the taxi entrance that's direct to the platforms. As a kid, we always dropped my grandparents off down there when they went home to the far west burbs on the Burlington.
And as much as I would love to see the trains from Northwestern Station combined into one huge station at Union, it just ain't gonna happen due to all the construction that's occurred there in the last 25 years! Or have you forgotten the Citicorp Building that replaced the Northwestern Station headhouse & moved the tracks north half a block?
Hell, they haven't even figured out how to rebuild the North West Passage connection to the Clinton St. L Station! It's easy! Just build a bridge across all the tracks at the northernmost end of the shortest platform & build stairs up to it. Have it go over the west wall of the station & then north over the sidewalk on the east side of Clinton directly to the mezzanine of the L station. Easy! And it doesn't knock out track 1 as the old connection did.

The lack of common sense in regard to planning in this city is appalling!

Whomever is assaying the possibilities for submitting a proposal for the remaking of Union Station's Great Hall ought to spend some time scoping out the delightful -- and busy -- French Market in Ogilvie Transportation Center.

It is a wonderful mix of public activity -- centered around food -- and private-sector retail commerce.

This model, of course, would only provide one aspect of a successful enterprise. But it seems to work very well. Why it does so is something worth contemplating for prospective developers.